Upcoming new bunny comics i.e. Minna’s next work

[dmeck7755]

I have been trying to find the story.  I was a pre-teen when I read it, and I am sure I have some info wrong

[dreki]

Recently I finally tracked down a book I remembered reading as a pre-teen that had been pretty important to me.  Unfortunately with my current understanding of the world, I realize it's actually really terrible and problematic on many levels and I kind of wish I'd never found it and it had lived in my memory.  So it may be better not to find it.

[wavewright62]

[mod hat ON]
I wish to remind folks that speculation on Minna's or anybody else's mental state, including armchair diagnoses of mental disorder, is not considered appropriate in the Forum. 

If somebody reaches out and discusses their own mental state, that is totally appropriate and we have seen much incisive commentary and advice (some of which I have found helpful in my own life).

Commentary on the themes, imagery and cultural impact of the testimony and journey comics is also totally appropriate for this thread.  As works that are intrinsically religious in background, it would be hard to avoid discussing theology and religious themes in connection with these works, but perhaps keeping it close to the topic would be best practice.  It is not required for your comments to be positive, but it is required to be respectful of others' beliefs and opinions.

[mod hat OFF]

[Dilandu]

...When your lamb is out of arguments and the opponent turns hostile, the answer is always simple: ULTRAVIOLENCE!!!

Also, it's a clear demonstration, that the moral lessons and faith aren't as important as having an upper hand in arm's race.

P.S. Frankly, the Lamb is kinda unsympathetic. He blundered the first plot, and tried to persuade animals to follow him, by claiming "yeah, your suffering was totally according to my plan, but now I would bring you to paradise, ho-nest-ly". Considering that he already demonstrated himself of being kinda bad planner, it's hard to blame animals for being extremely skeptical about his ideas.

[thorny]

Not only a bad planner, but IMO an evil one.

"you destroyed my meadow, as I knew you would"?

So the lamb knew they were going to start eating each other, and deliberately set them up in a situation in which that was inevitably going to happen?

The lack of concern shown for those who got eaten, and for the damage done to the community and the survivors, is breathtaking.

Genesis isn't that bad -- if one assumes the tri-potent god the problem is indeed simmering there under the surface, but the implication in the words themselves is that Adam and Eve might have just stayed away from that one tree, and if they had everything would have been fine. God in Genesis doesn't appear to have assumed that they'd disobey orders, and in fact doesn't at first seem to know that they've done so; the original authors may not have been assuming a tri-potent god.

[Dilandu]

Not only a bad planner, but IMO an evil one.

"you destroyed my meadow, as I knew you would"?

So the lamb knew they were going to start eating each other, and deliberately set them up in a situation in which that was inevitably going to happen?

The lack of concern shown for those who got eaten, and for the damage done to the community and the survivors, is breathtaking.

Exactly. Frankly, after such revelation its kinda hard to believe that only one wolf attacked the lamb. The big stampede of Very Angry Animals stomping lamb into bloody pulp would be more probable. Apparently, all animals herecare rather polite...

[LetsEatBees]

Hey guys, I've been away from the fandom for awhile and was prompted to check in when I found out that the testimony comic was finally released, it kind of snuck up on me(same with newest comic) and have been reading peoples thoughts on the situation.
Firstly I wasn't impressed with the testimony, I'm happy for her but also found her situation so alien that I couldn't really relate to her struggle with belief.
Second, reading Meandering Line I am somewhat more compelled due to it's more allegorical(metaphorical? not sure) nature, I found it surprisingly coherent.

Now that takes me to a issue I was thinking about: I feel like I have some interpretations for what certain scenes are trying to say/establish that I don't think I've seen people touch on yet, some of these are from the last batch and some are from this one and some carry across both. The question I have is would this be the best place to talk about them or should there be a more dedicated interpretations page to put them.
I worry that these thoughts could take some time to put into words and might get outdated or wind up being accidentally controversial.
Also have not figured out how to put things in a "read more" yet and worry about being long winded.
It's certainly not what I expected to bring me back here.  But I'm glad to see people are still coming and talking about this.

[Jitter]

Hello LetsEatBees, this is the correct thread. If you worry about being controversial, firstly read Wave's instructions above and follow them. You are allowed to be heavily critical of the work, but make sure you are not commenting on Minna as a person or any religion in general (specified beliefs and tenements can be discussed critically, but "Religion C is nothing but bullshit" type comments are not ok.

If you still worry, you may wish to put in an explanatory note, on the lines of "The following is my thoughts on xx and yy, which I think are relevant to the story and are not intended as general complaint about AA".

The read more or spoiler tags are available by pushing the button that says Sp above (to the right of the black button with i on it). It will create the spoiler tags (spoiler) to open and (/spoiler) to close it, but with [ ] parentheses instead. Write what you want between these tags and it will be inside a spoiler.  You can put in several one after the other, but nested spoilers i.e. spoilers inside a spoiler don't work, or at least it's not reliable.

So like this:

Here is a greeting for LetsEatBees

Spoiler: show

Hello! As you see, other tags can be used inside spoilers

and here's some more

Spoiler: show

just because

ps pictures are from the Reaction image hoard which can be found by pressing "Attachments and other options" under the box where you write the message / reply.

[thorny]

The read more or spoiler tags are available by pushing the button that says Sp above (to the right of the black button with i on it). It will create the spoiler tags (spoiler) to open and (/spoiler) to close it, but with [ ] parentheses instead. Write what you want between these tags and it will be inside a spoiler. 

Just to add:

You can also go ahead and type what you want into the regular reply box, and then highlight the part you want and click the spoiler button as above. That will put the spoiler tags around the highlighted text. That's what I''m doing here:

Spoiler: show

Hi Jitter and LetsEatBees!

[LetsEatBees]

Thanks Jitter, will probably come back today or tomorrow with my thoughts, been debating if I should skim what material/people Minna says she's been following or if I should
just give my personal take on what she's trying to get across.

Spoiler: show

Let's see if this works.

[Jitter]

It works!

[wavewright62]

Spoilers within spoilers do function, I use them with each Advent Calendar entry!  There are limits to naming the spoiler, but I've had success even with three plain spoilers nested.

[BirchTree]

Disclaimer: not a Christian, don't believe in any of this, but I was in catholic school when I was a teenager and read the Bible. Not American. My interpretation is based on this background.

I love interpreting media and I've been following Minna's comics for a couple of years now. The bunny comic was upsetting, but I'm not so traumatized by Christianity that it completely turned me away. I'm still reading the new comic for the art and because it contains some of my favorite animals which don't often get to be prettily drawn protagonists, and after seeing some confusion here I thought it might be fun to take my own stab at interpreting what's going on with it. Maybe it'll help!

I think the comic isn't trying to start with genesis/the creation of the world. I think the comic is a metaphor for the parts about Jesus, and it makes a lot more sense from that perspective:

The world is sinful and not close to god anymore (the animals live in a desert and are starving) so god sends himself in the form of his son to earth (the celestial lamb comes along) to teach humans how to live godly lives (the lamb vitalizes the meadow, tells the animals to 'be like him').

Jesus spends some time away from humans where there's a big time skip in the bible (the lamb leaves) and people fall back into sin even harder (the animals eat each other and the meadow dries up again). Jesus, who is the all knowing god in human form, knew they would since the original sin means all humans carry sinfulness in them (the lamb tells the animals he knew they'd fall into their old ways again) and comes to lead them once more.

This part is especially related to her Calvinism probably, with the view that the original sin changed humanity so that all their thoughts and actions are filtered through sin if I understand it correctly.

Then Jesus is tempted by the devil (the thin wolf challenges the lamb) but overcomes him and his temptation (lamb vs wolf sword action).

The last parts could also be interpreted as Jesus dying (lamb leaves) and being resurrected (lamb comes back) and promising people that he will lead them to heaven if they follow his teachings (the lamb tells the animals they should come with him and he'll stay with them to teach them his ways). Either could fit, but I currently think the former is more likely.

I expect that in the next parts the lamb will be betrayed and killed like Jesus was but promise that the animals who follow him (and 'journey upstream' since Minna said this journey is intended as a metaphor for living a Christian life/following Jesus) will be able to reach his meadow (and thus heaven).

That's how I read it at least! Let me know what you all think.

[Dilandu]

Then Jesus is tempted by the devil (the thin wolf challenges the lamb) but overcomes him and his temptation (lamb vs wolf sword action).

Well, I kinda struggle to understood how it correspond with each other. Wolf didn't tempt the lamb or something; lamb didn't overcome any temptation by its goodness or power of will. Lamb just provoke wolf into attacking him - after completely failing to persuade animals to follow himself ("your suffering was part of my plan" isn't exactly the best way to persuade anyone that you could solve his problems) - and won the confrontation by being better armed.

[lwise]

I find it hard to see this as an allegory for anything in the Bible, but I wonder if it might be read as an allegory for a single person's journey, with all the animals being her thoughts and feelings.

Initially, she's unhappy but doesn't know why (animals all together but alone).  Then faith!  At first, having faith (animals in the meadow)  makes it better and she's happy (all the animals are well fed and strong), but then her faith fails (the lamb goes away), and she's feels even worse (animals eat each other).  Along comes the Thin Wolf (nihilism) to say that faith was never enough and she shouldn't have tried it in the first place.  She starts to turn that way, but then a better, strong faith returns to combat the nihilism and (for now, anyway) prevails.